Cinderella's Valentine
by kialajaray
Summary: Helga never really liked fairy tales.


**Once again, I waited until the last minute to write a story. I thought that I would have more time, but I had like one minute to upload and put it up so I have to put up a fake story REALLY quick and I don't really like this but maybe I'll revise it. I'm not sure yet. Anyway, I got the idea for this when I was watching Arnold's Valentine. I hope you all like it.**

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Another Valentine's Day spent alone, Helga thought glumly as she walked down the ever familiar streets of her hometown. It shouldn't have been that big of a deal honestly. She had spent every other Valentine's Day alone. What should it matter if she spent another one the same way?

Maybe it was because of the fact that she was nineteen years old and was about to graduate from high school in a few months. And there was the fact that _everyone _had a valentine except her. Phoebe and Gerald, Curly and Rhonda, Harold and Patty, Brainy even had someone. But not Helga.

She knew that she shouldn't complain because even if someone had asked her to be their valentine, she would have declined because there was only one person who she wanted as her valentine and that wasn't going to happen.

Suddenly, the wind blew and caused Helga's hair to blow in front of her. Looking up, she stopped short, her breath catching in her throat when she noticed two French restaurants.

_Chez Paris._

Helga had completely forgotten about that Valentine's Day. She hadn't spent _that_ one alone. For the first few years after that, she had cherished it. If you didn't count throwing up sheep brains, having her hair done to like a poodle, and making a complete idiot out of herself at the end, it was a wonderful date.

But then she got older and she realized that she shouldn't be happy that Arnold liked _Helga_ Cecile and not _Cecile_ Cecile. He still didn't like, or even really know Helga _Helga_. And that was the problem. He could be in love with all personas she had taken on from Cecile all the way to deep throat, but she knew that it wasn't the same as loving her for Helga G. Pataki and since nothing had happened in all of the years that they had known each other, she had resigned herself to the fact that nothing would.

It was sad, but she could laugh at the situation now. Her hair had looked ridiculous and Arnold, no matter how dense he was when it came to the female population, he should have been able to tell that it had been her. And she didn't want to think about him keeping her red high heel. It was like some twisted Cinderella story.

Helga didn't even like fairy tales. Weak and frail girls waiting for a wonderful prince to save them. Well not Belle. Mulan either. And Ariel, depending on how you wanted to look at it. But not Pocahontas. She ditched John Smith for-

Either way, she didn't like the fact that women were helpless and needed someone that they barely knew to save them.

And speaking of things that she hated, she decided that she hated Valentine's Day too. Who needed the stupid holiday anyway? Why should people show that they love each other on only a certain day? Stupid commercial holiday.

Giving an indignant sniff, she turned away from the restaurant and continued her walk home. No one could doubt her love for the boy that was for sure. She had eaten sheep's brains for him. _Sheep's Brains!_ And all for what? Arnold still didn't know how she felt about him and she had lost a really good shoe.

Realizing that she didn't want to go home, she walked past her street and headed to the park. After reaching it, she found a bench and sat down to watch the couples walk by, either alone or with children. She knew that one day it would be her. The fact that it wasn't going to be Arnold walking beside her was something that she would think about later.

She didn't know how long she sat there, just watching everything and not really seeing anything at the same time when she got the feeling that someone was watching her. Looking around, she saw Arnold staring back at her.

Her first instinct was to get out of there as fast as possible. Like her had stated earlier, they didn't exactly have the best track record with Valentine's Day. But before she could do anything, he started walking towards her.

"Happy Valentine's Day Helga," he told her when he reached her. Sitting down next to her, he said, "What are you doing here by yourself?"

Helga shrugged. What was it to him anyway? "Just passing the time. I didn't feel like going back home right now and I've always loved the park for some strange reason. And Happy Valentine's Day to you too," she added belatedly. "I didn't see you in school today. Is everything alright?"

Maybe if she made senseless small talk he would get bored and leave.

"I was making some last minute arrangements for later today," he told her. "I wanted this gift to be perfect."

"Gift," she managed to ask nonchalantly. "How did that go?" She was dying to know who the lucky girl was that it had taken the whole day to plan something for her. She would gladly punch her face in.

"Great. I made arrangements at this restaurant that I'm sure that she'll love. You may have heard of it. It's called _Chez Paris._"

Helga could barely breathe. That was _they're _place. Not him and some floozy that barely knew him. "I think I've heard of it," she made herself say. "I've never been there though."

"I was there when we were younger," he told her. "But it was kind of hectic because I was running around so much."

Which of course meant that he was running back forth between her and Ruth, but she couldn't let him know that she knew that, could she? Instead, she continued to listen to him as he said, "I didn't really treat my date the way she deserved and I want to make it up to her."

Helga really couldn't breathe this time. He couldn't know that it was her, that was so long ago that he had to forget when she looked like. "What did you do that was so horrible," she asked him, just to see if he would tell the truth.

"Instead of giving her my full attention, I was running from her to Ruth. She found out and didn't like it at all. Now I'm making it up to her."

He told the truth, but of course he would. This was Arnold they were talking about. "You waited a long time didn't you? If this happened when we were younger, why wait until now?"

"See that was the problem," he told her, giving a small smile. "I didn't know who she was. I thought she was my pen pal Cecile and then it turned out that she wasn't. She told me that she couldn't tell me who she really was, but I thought about her ever since, especially on Valentine's."

"So you found her," Helga asked him, knowing that he hadn't.

"I didn't find her until a few months ago, but I've been trying to get her ever since and it hasn't really worked. I'm hoping that today is going to be different."

So he had found the wrong girl. And that wrong girl was going to get Arnold while Helga was left alone. Again.

"Well, congratulations, I'm happy that you found your mystery girl." Getting up, she said, "It's getting late, I think that I should be going home." She turned and started to walk away when he grabbed her arm.

After giving him a questioning look, he said, "I have to give you something."

Sitting back down, she watched him pick up a box that she hadn't noticed before. It was a square shaped box that was wrapped in red paper wit ha pink ribbon. Taking it from him, she saw that it wasn't all that heavy.

"What is it?"

"Why don't you open it?"

"What's it for," she said not giving up. She didn't understand why he would give her a gift. Pity maybe? Or just plain kindness.

"I'll tell you after you open it," was all Arnold told her.

Sighing, she pulled away the pink ribbon and tore the paper, seeing a plain empty box, she removed the lid. She gasped when she saw what was inside.

A pair of red high heels exactly like the ones she wore ten years ago.

"What is this," she asked him shakily.

"Don't you remember, Arnold asked her. "You left before I could give you your other shoe. I still have it you know. For years I would tell myself to throw it away, that I would never find my mystery girl again, but everytime I tried, something would stop me."

"When did you realize it was me?" She didn't even understand how she could make a rational thought, let alone speak it.

"I told you," he said, giving her another small smile. "A few months ago. It was at Homecoming. When I saw you, I couldn't take my eyes off of you and you hadn't even done anything different. All you did was let your hair down and I thought that you were the most beautiful girl at the dance. But I couldn't shake the feeling that I had seen you like that before. You should really thank Lila for it you know."

"_Excuse me," _she asked him. "What does Lila have to do with anything?"

"She was wearing red high heels and that's when I remembered."

"You weren't...surprised," she asked for lack of a better termed. Floored would have been a better word.

"After what you told me on the FTi building, it wasn't all that surprising. You had done everything to get my attention while trying to keep it secret at the same time. If you think about it, you did make it obvious that you liked me, but I was so stupid that I never realized it."

"So when you realized that I was Cecile you decided that you wanted me," she asked him.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "A few months before I found out, I would hear this music whenever I would see you or happen to think about you."

"Music?"

Laughing, he said, "Yeah, music. That day when we had our date, I told Gerald that I would hear music anytime I would see Ruth, but with you it's defferent. What I would hear was more like quiet humming with her, but with you, it's more like being on stage at a rock concert. I couldn't get you out of my head, and then it got worse when I found out that you were Cecile. Then I tried getting you're attention and didn't make it very easy."

"How exactly did you try to get my attention," she asked him skeptically.

"Helga, walking someone to class everyday isn't exactly what I would call platonic."

"I just thought that you were being nice."

"No, I wasn't and I couldn't think of anything else except redoing our first Valentine's Day. So Cinderella, will you wear the glass slippers?"

"Hey, I'm not Cinderella. I don't need you to rescue me. And I only have one sister and both my parents. How am I Cinderella?"

"Do you always have to be so technical?"

"I'm not being technical, but I don't-"

Before she could say anything else, Arnold silenced her with a kiss.

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**Ok, in like the two seconds it took me to go from the top to the bottom of the edit page, I have decided to revise it because I just remembered something that I to put in here. But Happy Lover's Day everyone. I hope that it was good. Mine was. I went to a parade. (one of the perks of growing up in south louisiana.) But please update, but if you don't I don't blame you.**

**kialajaray**

*****edit*****

**ok I rewrote it to where it's not as rushed and it ended a way that I liked. Again, happy lover's day everyone and I'm writing another oneshot now, but I'm not sure how that one is going to play out**


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